An index of effective number of variables for uncertainty and reliability analysis in model selection problems

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Martino, Luca, Morgado, Eduardo, Millán-Castillo, Roberto San
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Martino, Luca
Morgado, Eduardo
Millán-Castillo, Roberto San
author_facet Martino, Luca
Morgado, Eduardo
Millán-Castillo, Roberto San
contents An index of an effective number of variables (ENV) is introduced for model selection in nested models. This is the case, for instance, when we have to decide the order of a polynomial function or the number of bases in a nonlinear regression, choose the number of clusters in a clustering problem, or the number of features in a variable selection application (to name few examples). It is inspired by the idea of the maximum area under the curve (AUC). The interpretation of the ENV index is identical to the effective sample size (ESS) indices concerning a set of samples. The ENV index improves {drawbacks of} the elbow detectors described in the literature and introduces different confidence measures of the proposed solution. These novel measures can be also employed jointly with the use of different information criteria, such as the well-known AIC and BIC, or any other model selection procedures. Comparisons with classical and recent schemes are provided in different experiments involving real datasets. Related Matlab code is given.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_21403
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An index of effective number of variables for uncertainty and reliability analysis in model selection problems
Martino, Luca
Morgado, Eduardo
Millán-Castillo, Roberto San
Methodology
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Signal Processing
Computation
An index of an effective number of variables (ENV) is introduced for model selection in nested models. This is the case, for instance, when we have to decide the order of a polynomial function or the number of bases in a nonlinear regression, choose the number of clusters in a clustering problem, or the number of features in a variable selection application (to name few examples). It is inspired by the idea of the maximum area under the curve (AUC). The interpretation of the ENV index is identical to the effective sample size (ESS) indices concerning a set of samples. The ENV index improves {drawbacks of} the elbow detectors described in the literature and introduces different confidence measures of the proposed solution. These novel measures can be also employed jointly with the use of different information criteria, such as the well-known AIC and BIC, or any other model selection procedures. Comparisons with classical and recent schemes are provided in different experiments involving real datasets. Related Matlab code is given.
title An index of effective number of variables for uncertainty and reliability analysis in model selection problems
topic Methodology
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Signal Processing
Computation
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21403